As a member of Shenstone District Car Club, Ickle Dan was able to hire Curborough Sprint Track for a
day to use as a test day for the car. Since we didn't have any idea of the 205's quirks, it made sense
to spend some time before the first event getting to know the car. It's not a massive track and it's
not necessarily fully reflective of the conditions on a rally stage, but it does provide some safe
tarmac away from the public on which we could push the car and see what breaks.
Pretty much all of the team turned up to get a feel for what's necessary in servicing the car. We
ended up having to fix a water leak, a leaking manifold and siezing rear brakes. The latter proved
to be more of a serious problem, as we sheared the rear discs off the hubs towards the end of the day!
Well, at least it happened at the shakedown and not the first event! That's the whole point of testing
the car.
We learnt that the car handles fine (considering it's still on forest-spec Bilsteins) but the engine
seems to be a little off-song. Ickle Dan reckons there's some more power to come but it was hard to
tell if the engine was to blame or it was just the siezed rear brakes. The A032R Yokohama tyres prove
to have plenty of grip once they're warmed up and the Tran-X LSD pulls well out of the bends. So apart
from the minor (!) brakes problem the car is pretty much ready.
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